Culture Shock
by tabrazin
Summary: Set after Informed Consent. What started as a boring day of clinic duty for House turned into a new case for the team. Deals with euthanasia, and female gential mutilation And in there somewhere it's HouseCameron.


**Chapter 1: Informed Consent**

Cameron didn't know why she was there. She didn't believe in God, but for some reason she had abandoned her usual haunt in the locker room for the chapel. It was too easy for them to find her there. She didn't want to talk about what had happened. She couldn't actually believe that she had done it. Couldn't believe that she had held Ezra Powell's hand, smoothed the lines of pain and worry from his brow, gave him the morphine, and sat holding his hand until the monitor started to sound. At the beeping Cameron snapped out of her reverie and quickly left the floor. After all of her protesting over the past few days, she didn't want to be caught delivering the goods in a fairly lethal, fairly illegal sort of way.

When House came in, she wasn't sure what he was going to do. She certainly wasn't expecting the warm hand on her shoulder, a grip meant to impart strength. She also didn't expect him to say that he was proud of her and then sit down without uttering another word. He sat with her until her tear ducts ran dry and her tears had dried a chalky salty mess streaked with mascara. When she finally turned to look at him, the entirety of his gaze was focused on her. He stood up.

"Come on," he said, and she compliantly followed him. She would have followed him anywhere as long as it meant that she didn't have to make any decisions. The last one was enough to tide her over for a while. They went to his office where he collected her things and then ushered her to her car. Not bothering to ask, he opened her purse and fished around for her keys pausing briefly to scan the rest of the contents therein. He never could figure out what women had in these things… did they _really_ need all of this stuff When he looked up, he expected Cameron to be looking at him with that slightly amused, exasperated look she often had when he was in her vicinity, but she was staring into space. More accurately she was staring at the notch in the lapel of his blazer of his left shoulder. With the beep of the car alarm, she shook her head almost imperceptibly and reached for the door handle. Neither spoke on the 15 minute drive to her apartment. When they got there, he dropped her things on the chair by the door.

"Cameron, you look like hell," he said apathetically. More to get a rise out of her than anything else.

"Thanks," she mumbled, not noticing that he wasn't attacking her with his usual fervor.

"Go take a shower, and _not_ because I want to think about you naked mere feet from me, but because you really do look like hell. Cuddy thinks I'm the one who axed the old man, and if you show back up at work looking like that… well, my master plan will be ruined."

"Bite me," and she wearily began stripping off her jacket on her way down the hallway to what House assumed must be the shower.

Cameron stood under the steady stream of water. Letting it rinse the surface grime of the last few days off of her. She admitted to herself that it felt good to feel clean. When she got out of the shower she could smell… burning. It smelled like burnt toast. She quickly toweled off and pulled on a tank top and a pair of cropped black jersey pants. Arriving back in the kitchen she wasn't expecting the sight of House sitting at the counter with two mugs of coffee, two pieces of toast perfectly browned on a plate in front of what could only be the seat he intended for her (although he was sitting in the seat she usually intended for herself) and directly in front of him was a half devoured piece of charred toast with so much butter on it she was sure he was going to give himself heart disease. He pushed the mug towards her lobbing the threat at the same time, "If you tell anyone that I _can_ make coffee, but that I _cannot_ make toast, you'll be doing my clinic duty for a month."

She flashed him a smile before she picked up the toast finally realizing that part of the gnawing in her stomach wasn't an overbearing sense of morality, although that was probably the majority of it, but that she was starving. They sat in silence and when Cameron had finished her meal, she went to her bedroom and put work appropriate clothes on. When she reentered the kitchen, House was standing by the front door holding her coat and bag.

When they got back to Princeton-Plainsborough, House parked her car exactly in the spot it had vacated not two hours before. He locked it before turning to give her the keys. Before she had the chance to thank him like he knew she wanted to, he turned and began limping to the elevator. Cameron stood in the parking garage thumbing her keys for a few moments and then took the other elevator to the Department of Diagnostics.

When she entered the conference room, the first thing she noticed was that House was sitting at his desk bouncing his oversized red and grey tennis ball off the far wall and catching it with the curved end of his cane. Swing of the cane, bang against the wall, and the gentle arc of the cane as he cradled the ball before winding up to lob it again. The second thing she noticed was that Chase and Foreman were discussing, no, arguing about what they believed had happened during the night.

"All I'm saying is that it was wrong. He abuses the privileges of being a doctor all the time, but this time he took it one step too far. Playing with the guy like that! Telling him that he'd give him what he wanted, put him out of his misery, and then put him in a coma… then after the guy jumps through all the hoops and House solves the puzzle… then he, what? Disposes of him like…" Foreman trailed off.

"Like the disposable slowly decaying hunks of flesh I believe humans really are? Were those the words you were searching for, Foreman?" House inquired from the open doorway of his office.

"Yeah, something like that," Foreman muttered as he got up from the table and started for the hallway.

"Hate to disappoint," House intoned as he let the office door close behind him.

Cameron spent the rest of the day filling out paperwork, and then filing paperwork. She was glad to have a respite, not only was the Earth still spinning, but the more she got back to normal tasks, the easier everything seemed. What she had done was becoming… simple. It seemed simple. It truly was informed consent. No one could know better than another doctor what the next few months of Ezra Powell's life would be. Chemotherapy might be able to prolong his life for maybe a year, but with systematic organ and system failure, it would be an excruciating road to hoe. When faced with that decision, Cameron, too, thought that death seemed an extremely appealing option. So _she_ had consented, and granted one of the most brilliant minds in science _his_ respite. After so many years of service, maybe it was the least he deserved. Cameron left that evening feeling decidedly better about things; House hadn't even been mean to her the whole day.

**Chapter 2: Clinic Duty**

At 9:30 AM the next morning it seemed that nothing had changed. House had switched his AC/DC shirt for The Who, but the ball was following the same trajectory as yesterday; swing, bang, catch. At 9:45 Cuddy entered House's office shook her head at game he was playing and began spewing the words House dreaded hearing…

"I need you in the clinic."

"But Mom, I don't want to go near the sick people. I might catch something," House replied as he gave her his best pout.

"You mean besides that tennis ball?"

"Hey, this is an important life skill," House said while he managed to send the ball flying, quickly spin in his chair, and make it all the way back around to catch the ball again. "Primo."

"House, I'm not asking. I'm telling. After that little stunt you pulled with Ezra Powell earlier in the week, you owe me."

"Okay, okay, I'll have sex with you. Now do I have to go to the clinic?"

"Get downstairs"

For a few seconds he deliberated in his head what was the better tactic; to make fun of her cleavage again, or just call her the wicked witch of the west and get on with it. Ultimately he decided that he didn't know which "little stunt" she was talking about: putting the guy in a coma or pumping him with enough morphine to kill an elephant. It was good that no one was looking through the pharmacy log. If they did, they'd find two interesting factoids. The first was Cameron's signature attached to that particular piece of evidence, and the second, that she had used four times the dose required to take a man out of the realm of the living. Even if they did believe that he had gotten Cameron to sign for the drugs, there's no way anyone would believe that he would be so foolish to use that high a dose. It was totally suspicious. He'd have to mention that to her later. Right now, however, he gave Cuddy his death stare, followed by a defeated sigh as he dropped the ball and made his way to the clinic.

His first patient was a ten year old boy with an inexplicable rash… Little red itchy bumps all over his body...whatever could this be? His mother insisted that it was _not_ chicken pox. She was a good mother and had gotten the boy the vaccine when he was younger. Not deterred by House's claim that it was possible to get chicken pox even if you had the vaccine, she insisted that the diagnosis was wrong until House finally told her that if her son didn't have chicken pox, then there was one more possible cause of her son's symptoms: _varicella_, but that it would go away on its own and that she should use calamine lotion to relieve the boy's symptoms. House handed her the prescription and ducked out of the room. Hoping, but doubting, that she wouldn't go straight home and google _varicella_ on the interweb and realize she'd been duped. Maybe she'd be less inclined to come back to the hospital and complain if her son's symptoms disappeared…

The second patient was a guy who had fallen off a ladder at work and hit his head. His boss had made him come in to make sure he didn't have a concussion… something about accountability. Total snooze.

He swiped the next file off the desk and glanced at it on his way to Exam Room 1. Abi Cawl, four years old, rest of file completely blank… great, he thought as he began to push open the door… they didn't even bother writing down what's wrong because her symptoms are non-existent. Taking one look at the little girl in front of him, however, told him that something was incredibly wrong with her. Her big brown eyes were large with fear and glassed over with pain, her mocha skin looked ashen, and House could see beads of sweat formed at her hairline. The wetness had plastered her thin t-shirt to her body.

"What happened to her?" House said as he took no time feeling for the fever he knew was there. Wondering how long she'd had the infection he began to check her body for ticks and bites. He got to her chin before a strong hand stopped him from searching any lower.

"A woman must do this," the man said, his voice heavily accented with East African. House took off his gloves, washed his hands, rubbed his face in his hands, and called Cameron for a consult, not that he couldn't have bullied the man into letting him do the exam, but why should he do the work if they guy was giving him a perfectly good excuse not to. He knew that she had an infection; they just needed to figure out what would be the best course of medications to put her on. Diagnostically boring… Cameron arrived a few minutes later.

"House, you're not cajoling me into doing your clinic duty. I promise I didn't mention the toas…" Her voice dropped off as she took in the girl's appearance. "Why aren't you doing anything?" she questioned, anger making the words sting.

"Because he won't let me touch her, and I figure it's better to treat her than have him drag her out of here before we get a diagnosis."

"Oh," she murmured as she, too, felt the girls head barely noticing as the father left the room. "I must leave. My wife will take her home," he said as he closed the door behind him.

"We're going to find out what's wrong with you," Cameron said to the little girl reassuringly as she began to peel away Abi's clothing. She stripped the girl down to her underwear and checked her body for the telltale signs of tick, mosquito, and spider bite. She checked ears, eyes, tonsils. Not finding anything Cameron quickly glanced at House.

"Do it," he said, and Cameron got the little girl to lie down and scoot her bottom up so she could pull down the girl's underwear. The little girl gave a sharp intake of breath and began to cry as she saw the pain she must have been feeling reflected in Cameron's eyes.

Female circumcision; those words did not begin to describe what Cameron was left facing. In med school she had been told about the various types: clitoridotomy, clitoridectomy, and infibulation. She quickly racked her brain for the identifying markers that distinguished the differences between them.

House, as usual, beat her to it. "Clitoridectomy," he directed at her. "What was used to do it?" he directed towards the mother. She just rung her hands and looked back at House with a worried expression on her face. "Nevermind, probably a rusty razor, piece of glass," he said and looked to Cameron who was still staring at the tiny girl's genitals.

Female genital mutilation, the words now came to Cameron. The full force of them staring her in the face. Where her most sensitive organ should be, left in its place was a scab. Around that were the beginnings of a fairly serious infection. Cameron's heart felt like it had been ripped out. She willed this to not really be happening. This girl had just been ripped out of childhood. Forced into a world she hadn't even known had existed yet. Cameron thought about the girl's future sexual experiences: would she marry a man that knew the practices and would force her daughters to the same fate? Or would she escape it and fall in love with someone who wouldn't understand why she had had to go through the pain? Would he look at her with pity in his eyes as he took her? Cameron realized that neither of these scenarios would play out if the girl died… back to reality and House's curious stare focused on her.

"Give her something to dull the pain," he said, "5mg Oxy should work, and go broad on the infection. Could be anything. Tetanus booster, too," House called over his shoulder as he left the clinic. "Dr. Cameron is taking the rest of my shift," he glibly said to the nurse on duty as he passed her desk.

Cameron saw three more patients before House's shift was up. She doubted she could have even remembered what the diagnoses were, let alone the people's actual names. This was remarkable for Cameron, usually by now she'd be checking back in to see how Mrs. So-and-so was progressing, but her mind kept drifting back to Abi.

Later that afternoon she was in the conference room when House came in followed by Chase and Foreman.

"Hi, Princess," he greeted her, as she rolled her eyes. "How was the rest of my clinic duty?"

"Just great. I really appreciate you forcing me to examine a 4 year old girl who… who… just had the core of her being removed, and then, as soon as my back is turned, you leave the clinic volunteering me to do the rest of your work when I can barely focus on anything so you can go… and what? Throw your tennis ball at the wall?!?" all of the stress and anxiety that had been building over the past 2 days all spilled out. She let her shoulders drop defeatedly as she let out a sigh. House didn't say anything. He calmly took it all in, while a look of awe swept the other ducklings at Cameron's audacity. "I'm sorry. I need to leave early," she mumbled as she reached for her coat.

**Chapter 3: House Call**

Cameron had just settled on the couch, music drifting softly through the room, when she heard the sharp tap of wood on wood. Before she could register that it was the door, the tapping became more frequent and turned into an annoying crescendo that only House could put together on the fly.

"What do you want?" she greeted.

"Icy," he countered, "there's a few things we didn't cover before you left."

"I'm too tired for this, House."

"Well, that's one of the perks of being your boss. You always have to listen to me."

"Fine," she said and returned to the couch. House followed her and sat down.

"The kid's improved. Site of infection is less inflamed. She doesn't look like she has the fear of God in her anymore."

"Wait. You came here just to tell me that a _patient_ was going to be _fine_? And you don't believe in God," she added as an afterthought.

"Yeah, well… I also wanted to tell you that you used enough morphine on Powell to kill an elephant. You could have killed 5 frail old men with that dose. Be more careful next time." She didn't say anything, but he could tell that she was upset. So when she got up to change the music, he knew it was a cover. He followed her to the stereo, standing so close to her that he was surprised that she couldn't pick up his presence, as all five of his senses were attuned to her every breath. She turned and had nowhere to go. Before she could wonder what game he was playing at, he pulled her into a hug. Tucking her head underneath his chin, she collapsed into him. Allowing herself to feel safe and taken care of, even if it was an illusion, just for a few minutes.

When she pulled away first, he was concerned. She could see it in his eyes. She didn't know what happened. All she was trying to do was reassure him. Let him know that she wasn't upset. That it was okay that he hugged her. Somehow that turned into her tilting her head up and softly kissing him on the lips. She broke it a second later, taking advantage of his surprise to push past him and start pacing the room, arms clenched in front of her like the patient was seconds away from death if she didn't find the diagnosis… stat was that word you doctors use.

House planted himself directly in front of her. She stopped walking, but started fidgeting instead until he reached out to steady her.

"Stop," and the tenderness in his voice that she had never heard before, let alone imagine, made her stop. Stop pacing, stop fidgeting, stop thinking. He tilted her head up, took a moment to look in her eyes, and then lowered those same eyes to her lips, and then followed the trajectory with his lips. She hadn't realized that she had been holding her breath until the kiss deepened and she sighed into his mouth. When the kiss mutually ended, they met eyes.

"Okay?" House asked averting her eyes.

"What?" Cameron furrowed her brows in confusion.

"I asked if you were okay"

"Yeah. I'm just…"

"Good," House interrupted dismissively, "Don't be late tomorrow." And with that he limped to the door.

Cameron had decided that this day could not possibly have gotten any worse. Not only did she freak out at the hospital over something that should have been relatively routine, but then she kissed House in the middle of her living room in the middle of the afternoon. Granted he kissed her back, but who knows why he did that. Probably just to get her to stop clenching. She knew that he hated when she did it, but she couldn't help it. He thought it was because subconsciously she was protecting herself against him, and in a corner of her mind, Cameron admitted that he was probably right. Not that they'd ever talked about it. Not that they ever would.

House found his way back to PPTH and as he was making his way to the elevator to get Wilson to explain what the hell was wrong with him, what the hell was wrong with her, what the hell was wrong with them… he nearly walked into Cuddy.

"Can't talk. On a mission," and he blew by her hitting the door close button on the elevator on the chance that she try to follow him in.

House banged on the closed door to Wilson's office until he cracked the door open wide enough to stick his head out.

"House, go away. I'm with a patient," Wilson hissed.

"Is…" House peeked over Wilson's head into the room, "he dying?"

"Yes."

"Today?" House demanded.

"Not today, but I don't have time to play games with you, House." Wilson said and as he began to close the door he heard.

"Jim, I don't know what to do. I kissed her."

Wilson looked at House, determined that he was serious, closed the door to the office and a few seconds later the dying cancer man left the office giving House an agitated look as he past.

Before Wilson had even closed the door and turned around, House had started pacing.

"You did what now?"

"I kissed her."

Wilson gave House a sidelong look.

"Cameron. I kissed Cameron. Jesus, Wilson. Who did you think?"

"No... it's not that. I just know that you're going to mess this up, and I was trying to do the math as to how long it was going to take. Turns out I suck at long division …Okay, I'm sorry. What happened?"

"Well, she was upset because she offed the guy, and so she left early, and I went to her place to check and make sure she was okay, and she was clenching, and she was pacing, and she just needed to stop. So I made her stop. It made her stop."

"Oh, boy," Wilson shook his head.

"Wilson, I know it sounds unbelievable. Who would ever believe that I would go and check on someone to make sure they were okay… but it's true."

"I was more taken aback by the 'Cameron offed the guy' comment."

"Powell. Cuddy thinks it was me. Don't blow her cover."

"Damn…" Wilson sighed.

**Chapter 4: Headstrong**

Cameron walked into Diagnostics the next morning with a plan: determined for her and House's work relationship to not be awkward. They had even begun to have a certain odd camaraderie with each other in the past few weeks, but then she had gone and ruined it. Though he had kissed her back, she reasoned with herself… and then she pushed those thoughts out of her head. Time to focus on the task at hand, she reprimanded herself. She put the coffee on, sat down, sorted the mail, and checked House's referrals for a case that looked promising… and promising, she mused, meant almost impossible. By the time she was done, so was the coffee. She made herself a cup and one for House. Set his on his desk and went to find Cuddy.

"Cuddy?"

The older woman looked up from the paperwork that she had been perusing. Noticed the serious look on the younger girl's face and put the papers down.

"What'd House do now?" she steeled herself for the news.

"Nothing, well, nothing out of the ordinary. House isn't why I'm here. There's this girl, she's four. She's been abused. We need to call social services. I just wanted to tell you before I went ahead and called…"

"Cameron, for an immunologist, you call social services more than any other doctor in this hospital, let alone specialist. What are the specifics? And do you have a case?"

"She… her… clitoridectomy…" when the situation became too personal for her, when she felt too invested, Cameron switched to medical terms. She tried to pretend that it made it less real. That she could be objective, "I don't know if the father did it, or if he just had it done, but that little girl is traumatized. She can't stay with him."

"What about the mother?"

"She's too… obedient… submissive… to stand up to him, even if she wanted to." Cameron began to pace. Arms tightly clenched in front of her. It was at this point that House rounded the corner and stopping short, ducked back behind the wall to listen to Cameron's tirade. "I've done my research. In 2001 a man named Khalid Adem cut off his daughter's clitoris with a pair of scissors… a pair of scissors…she was two years old! The practice has come to the United States along with immigration from Eastern Africa. In 2006 Adem was tried and convicted of child cruelty and aggravated battery. Female genital cutting became illegal in Georgia, and since then congress passed a law outlawing it in the US. We need to get her away from him…"

House stepped around the corner, "Not so fast. We still gotta fix her first."

"What are you talking about? Yesterday you said she was fine." the anger blatantly flashing in her eyes.

"Yeah, well, I was just trying to get in your pants yesterday…go get a history. Foreman and Chase are… shopping for feminine products for Wilson."

"Fine, but this isn't done," Cameron directed pointedly at both of her superiors. She had known that House would pretend that nothing had happened between the two of them. Expected that he would make some sort of inappropriate comment just to prove that he had the upper hand, and that he was in control of the situation. Whether he was or not. Rather she was angry that House was again stepping in the way of justice. Granted, with Alex he had known that both parties would deny any abuse and she would come out looking the fool, and he had tried to stop her, though not very forcefully. Not that it would have mattered if he had tried, thought Cameron, but this is different. This is a little girl, and she's had something horrible done to her, and she's too little to fight back. She needed someone to fight for her, and Cameron had decided that she would be the one to fight for her. It was at this point that Cameron realized that she would never stop fighting, and suddenly that made her weary.

Cameron took a few minutes outside Abi's room to pull herself together before she went in. "Hello, Mr. Cawl, my name is Doctor Cameron and I need to ask you a few questions so we can figure out what's wrong with your daughter.'

"Okay, differential diagnosis, people, the kid's fever is back with a headache. She's starting to have seizures and jaundice is setting in. If we don't figure out what's going on soon…" House stood poised over the white board. "We'll make a game of it. Contributions made by Cameron will be written in green to match her eyes, and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum's contributions will be written in brown, because Foreman's black and Chase, well, that's a story for another time..." All three ducklings rolled their eyes, and for a brief moment House met eyes with Cameron to see how she would react. To her credit, she was poised and had not let the comment about her eyes phase her. House, satisfied that the vagueness that currently existed between the two of them wouldn't affect Cameron's work, continued; "Now here's where it gets fun. For each contribution that is actually helpful to the diagnosis, you get a point. The team with the most points at the end wins."

"Wins what?" Foreman raised his eyebrow skeptically.

"It's a surprise. Ready, set…" House popped the cap off of the green marker, "Cameron, go!"

"Abi's been scared of nightmares. Her parents have been getting annoyed, but maybe they're hallucinations," Cameron ventured, "Could be neurological. Nightmares, if you add in seizures, could be malaria."

House wrote "malaria" on the board in green.

"No," Foreman interjected, "her liver wouldn't be shutting down. We found a goat's head… and various other parts in a curing shed in the backyard. We should check for Q fever. If it's from the goat, could be the _coxiella_ form of Typhus."

House wrote "Q fever" on the board in brown.

"She's not presenting any of the other symptoms though; chills, sweating, pneumonia," Cameron rattled off. "They were in Kenya for 6 weeks visiting family: in a small herding village named Liboi on the Somali border. They've been back in New Jersey for eight days" Cameron supplied.

"Great, Africa, so now that Pandora's Box is open, Cameron, care to take another stab?" House drawled.

"Could be Dengue fever, or Rift Valley fever that would fit," Cameron hypothesized.

"It could also be Chikungunya fever," Chase contributed.

"Ah, the Aussie pipes in," House condescended, "the problem with Chikunguya fever is that there's no treatment and she'd be showing signs of improvement from the regiment she's already on."

"Anything else?" House asked.

"Leptospirosis," Foreman added.

"Okay, Cameron has malaria, Dengue fever, and Rift Valley fever. Foreman and Chase are going with Q fever, Chikungunya fever, and leptospiroisis. Hit her with naproxen, paracetamol, and doxycycline. Those will rule out Q fever, malaria, chikungunya, and lepto. If that doesn't work, we'll bring out the big guns. Cameron, run a PCR for the Q fever. Chase get an MRI. Foreman, you sit there and try not to steal anything and if you're feeling ambitious do a lumbar puncture."

"It's _Foreman's_ diagnosis. I have a meeting. I'll check on the patient after it's finished," she said curtly and before House could argue Cameron had left the room and was striding down the hallway at an impressive pace.

**Chapter 5: A Woman's Place**

When Mr. Gouled Cawl saw that the woman-doctor, Dr. Cameron, was responsible for the investigation that was currently taking place, he became enraged. Demanding that his daughter be removed from the hospital, threatening to sue, claiming that because the "ritual," as he called it, had taken place in Kenya by a local midwife and not in the United States, that he had broken no American law, and therefore the case should be dropped immediately, and Cameron should apologize. He would forgive her because it wasn't her fault that she had forgotten how to behave like a woman, insinuating that it was House's fault that she was so impudent. It was only when Cameron was gone so long that House went searching for her did he find the meeting.

"And what do we have here?" he said as he closed the door to the conference room behind him.

"I have done nothing wrong. You cannot accuse me of abuse. You cannot take my daughter. Can you not control your woman?" Mr. Cawl asked pointedly.

"Well, here in America we find that it works out better for everyone if we don't mutilate our women. Lessens chance of infection," House said glibly. At this point House gathered himself to deal the death blow, "your daughter is going to die unless _we _figure out what is wrong with her. She is too sick to move, and even if she wasn't, there isn't a doctor within 500 miles who could have a snowball's chance in hell of curing her. Her only hope is the doctors that comprise _my _team. Doctor Cameron is a prominent member of _my _team. I suggest that you go tell your wife what to do instead of ordering around a doctor who has more competency in her little finger than you do in the entirety of your body," the calm that had settled over House was alarming. The social worker stared; a bit slack jawed, at the scruffy man with the limp standing before her. House nodded to her and then ushered Cameron to walk in front of him and he began to follow. Before he closed the door behind him, he turned and added, "There might not be a national law in Kenya specifically prohibiting female genital cutting, but there are provisions of the Penal Code detailing "hurt," "grievous hurt," and "very grievous hurt" that we could certainly make fit. The only question that remains is if you want to get tried in New Jersey or Nairobi" and with that House let the door slam.

With the few seconds that it took for House to throw that last passing jibe, Cameron had strides on him. She wasn't slowing down either. House followed her to the locker room. It seemed when circumstances were taking their toll on Cameron, she seemed to be choosing to hide. He pushed the door open to find her sitting on the floor, knees bent, shoulders sagging, her lab coat splayed to expose where her shirt didn't quite meet her tailored pants. He sat down on the bench facing her.

"You're not going to thank me?" he began.

"Why bother?" she responded tiredly, quietly; all of the anger that she had been counting on to carry her though the meeting dissipating. House leaned down and reached out his hand and brushed the longer pieces of bangs that had fallen into Cameron's eyes behind her ear. He thought briefly about how it was almost becoming second nature for him to touch her. Well, maybe not quite second nature, but this was the fourth time he had initiated contact with her in not quite that number of days. He entertained the notion for a second that he even enjoyed the silky feeling of the strands in his fingertips. He snapped out of his reverie when she began to stand.

"What are you hiding from, Cameron?" House astutely asked.

"I should go check on those test results," Cameron evaded.

"Not so fast," and with that House grabbed her wrist and pulled her down next to him. "You need to stop this. Get over Powell; get over what was done to this little girl. You're going through the motions, but you're not really there. If we're going to figure this out, I need you here."

The double meaning of his words was not lost on Cameron. Leave it to House to be purposefully vague. Encompass everything with one carefully chosen phrase.

Because it was the nature of their relationship, Cameron probed, "you're talking about more than the case."

House didn't answer, which was not a confirmation, but it wasn't exactly a denial either. Encouraged, Cameron continued, "I've had a lot on me these past couple days. Doing what I did with Powell… I never expected that I would make that decision. I had thought about what I would do if I were ever faced with that situation, and every instinct I'd ever had had me fighting for life, but then I was actually in that situation, and in that instant every molecule in my body wanted to let him go. How do you deal with the world getting turned upside-down? And you wouldn't leave me alone. Every time I tried to have a quiet moment to process, you would come and find me." She rung her hands, afraid of how he would take what she said next, "I didn't mean to kiss you," she whispered. "I had spent the past year convincing myself that I needed to get over it. Needed to get over you. I was just trying to show some appreciation for what you had done over the past couple days, and then I had ruined it. And my head started spinning again. But then you kissed me. I've been trying to convince myself that it didn't mean anything, that it doesn't change anything. But I need to know," and Cameron sought House's eyes, "does it?"

House broke the eye contact first, "You should go check on those test results." House was silently pleading with Cameron that she would not push further. He hoped that she had realized over their time working together that House, too, needed some time to get his mind around things. Hoped that she realized that the reason why he so often stalled and evaded her and her questions was that she was too honest, too quick-fire and blatant with what she wanted and what she was asking that he didn't have time to process, and when faced with needing to say something he hadn't completely thought out, he inevitably said something mean and hurtful. It didn't matter if ultimately he hadn't meant it, it had been said. And people, especially Cameron, had a hard time forgetting when House was saying something cruel. Fortunately, Cameron had learned in the two-odd years that she had been in the diagnostics department, and stood to go check on the test results.

"Cameron?" House queried. She looked at him with tired eyes, "Everybody lies," and with that she strode out of the room, more confident of their relationship and her place at the hospital than she ever had.

**Chapter 6: Reaching**

The PCR was negative. The MRI and lumbar puncture didn't show anything. The antibiotics she was on weren't helping either. It was getting to the point where House started taking Hail Mary shots. Cameron hated sports metaphors, but at least this one she understood. She had met up with Chase and Foreman and conferred with them before they had to all go tell House that they had nothing. Weren't any steps closer to curing the little girl.

"Okay, well, it's something at least," House said when they had told him that all of their attempts failed. "Looks like it might be Rift Valley Fever after all. Cameron go get a consent for ribavirin."

"House, I can't. The father won't consent to anything I propose. And anyways, are you sure that you want to try this? Ribavirin as a treatment for Rift Valley is still in clinical trials. We're not even sure that she has Rift Valley."

"We have to. It's the only shot she has," and with that House went to get the consent. He really preferred when Cameron went to interact with the patients and their families, but she was right. The guy wouldn't sign just on principle if he knew that she was behind it.

Mr. Cawl was surprisingly agreeable and signed the consent with minimal dissent. So the team started Abi on the retro-viral regiment that same afternoon. By the next day Abi's fever had broken, she hadn't had a seizure in twenty hours, and her liver function was quickly returning to normal. It was on the second day when the girl timidly asked if the girl-doctor with the pretty hair could come visit her. Since it was the middle of the day when she asked Foreman, he thought that her dad would be at work for a least a few more hours and would never know that Cameron had seen the girl. When Foreman relayed the message to Cameron, she quickly raised her eyebrows in concern and was walking towards the patients' wing before Foreman had even stopped talking.

Cameron paused briefly at the door to Abi's room before going in. When Abi saw her, a grin spread over the girl's face.

"Hi," she said timidly.

"Hi," Cameron responded as she sat down on the edge of the bed, "How are you feeling?"

Thirty minutes later Cameron emerged from the room happy that she had taken steps to remove Abi from what she had learned was near constant abuse for the child. She had learned that Mr. Cawl had been hoping for a son, and when he had gotten a little girl instead, had viewed it as a punishment from god. He had then taken his anger out on her. Cameron knew that the girl would be going into foster care for a while, but that hopefully she would be adopted by a family that was more progressive than where she was coming from, and that maybe Abi would have the opportunity to go to school, and maybe college. She would be able to have prospects in life, instead of just doing what her father told her, until he married her off, and then doing what her husband wanted. Yes, Cameron knew she had done the right thing.

Cameron was in House's office, finishing up the last of the details of the case when House came up behind her. She knew he was there, and she looked up before he spoke.

"Looks like you win," House said softly.

"Looks like I do," Cameron countered.

House took two steps closer and leaned against his desk, "So what's your prize?" he said as he scanned her face. Looking for something, anything, to betray her true feelings.

"What?"

"You won the diagnosis. I promised a prize."

"Well, I thought you'd have already had something in mind. Four hours of your clinic duty, I'd imagine," she said amusedly.

"If Chase had won instead of you, then you'd be right, but he didn't. And you've already done enough of my clinic duty in the past week," he said, alluding to how they ended up with Abi's case in the first place.

"I'm sure you'll think of something," and with that Cameron stood up and started to get her things to leave for the night. She turned to look at him and say goodnight when one of his hands involuntarily moved to brush a stray strand of hair out of her face. His palm lingered on her cheek long enough for her to sigh into his hand, and he pulled her face closer to his. Before he kissed her, he looked into her eyes and saw the same hesitation and desire reflected in her eyes that he knew was also in his, and he knew that she was just as wary as he was, but with care they both just might make it out alive.


End file.
